Particular attention is being paid to card-shaped information storage mediums because of their handy shape and of their low production cost. The card-shaped information storage medium largely comprises a thin insulating board formed with conductive patterns, at least one semiconductor chip electrically connected to the conductive patterns and a protective film of a synthetic resin covering the thin insulating board and the semiconductor chip. The semiconductor chip usually provides an information storage of the read only memory type or the random access memory type and, in some applications, is associated with another semiconductor chip for the data information processing.
The card-shaped information storage medium thus arranged is inserted into a slot of an information processing unit and provides data informations to the information processing unit for operation. For this reason, the card-shaped information storage medium needs to have a plurality of communication terminals, and several examples of the communication terminals are disclosed in an article entitled "ELECTRONICS MANUFACTURES RUSHING INTO IC CARD MARKET", NIKKEI ELECTRONICS 1985. 12. 16, pages 249 to 262. This article describes that one of the problems encountered in the card-shaped information storage medium is an electric destruction due to electrostatic charges applied from a human body to the semiconductor chip through communication terminals. One of the solutions is to provide the communication terminals in cavities formed in the protective film as illustrated in FIG. 4 of the article. The communication terminals are not exposed to the outside, so that the electrostatic charges are hardly applied to the communication terminals. Another solution is also described in the article that magnetic coupling are used to communicate with the information processing unit as illustrated in FIG. 7 of the article.
However, a problem is encountered in the prior-art card-shaped information storage medium with communication terminals received in the cavities in that pins of the connector tend to be bent upon attachment to the communication terminals due to low hardness. This problem is serious if the number of pins is increased without increasing the occupation area. On the other hand, another problem is encountered in the prior-art card-shaped information storage medium in that the information storage medium is liable to be increased in size and production cost due to the magnetic coupling incorporated therein.